🚧 Destin approved a 320-room hotel after sharp disagreements over parking reductions, traffic safety, and code limitations that left officials frustrated.
🚗 Council members warned the project could worsen dangerous left turns onto Highway 98, where congestion already operates at failure levels.
🌴 The sparse landscape plan triggered the strongest pushback, fueling broader concerns that the city’s development code is enabling projects out of step with community expectations.
DESTIN — The Destin City Council approved a development order Monday for a six-story, 320-room Drury Plaza Hotel on Highway 98 East, ending a tense debate over traffic hazards, parking reductions and the city’s development rules that several council members said are allowing projects out of step with community expectations.
The council added two conditions before approving the project: at least 80% of all required trees must be native species, and the hotel must include a designated pet relief area. Drury representative Eddie Robinson agreed to the conditions only after stepping out during a brief recess to get authorization from company leadership.
“I’ll agree to that — and go ahead and put the dog park in it,” Robinson said.
The hotel will occupy 10.27 acres at 1001 Highway 98 East, next to Big Kahuna’s Water Park. The plan includes 4,000 square feet of conference space, an outdoor pool, stormwater improvements, pedestrian features, and 333 parking spaces. City staff said the project meets all required standards of the comprehensive plan and land development code.
But meeting those standards quickly became the central issue.
Under conventional calculations, the hotel would have needed 426 parking spaces. Using reductions permitted in the city’s Multi-Modal Transportation District and a joint-use parking analysis, the requirement was lowered to 333, a 22% reduction.
Councilman Dewey Destin said the reduction left the hotel under-parked even at full occupancy.
“When the hotel is full, we do not even have one space per room at the hotel, not including whatever activity may be going on at the convention center,” he said. “It looks to me like we are still reducing parking to the point that it may not be adequate.”
City planning staff told the council they had no authority to deny the reduction.
“Per the code, as long as they have an engineered shared parking analysis, the city manager shall approve it,” a staff member said. “So there’s really no discretion.”
Councilman Rodney Braden said the blame lies with the code itself—not the applicants who follow it.
“If we’ve had an issue about it, why is it not in the ordinance?” Braden said. “Staff’s just going by what we’ve put in place. If we don’t like it, let’s change it.”
The city is currently rewriting its land development code, but no completion timeline was provided on Monday.
Traffic at the hotel’s driveway dominated much of the discussion. The project includes a full-access median opening on a section of U.S. 98 already operating at Level of Service F, meaning traffic is chronically congested.
Mayor Bobby Wagner warned that visitors arriving from the Destin–Fort Walton Beach Airport and avoiding toll roads could be funneled by GPS directly into a dangerous left turn.
“My fear for the guest overall experience is if they’re flying into VPS and they don’t want to take the toll, they’re gonna come from Fort Walton,” Wagner said. “They’re going through an uncontrolled intersection that’s already a cluster.”
City Engineer Robert Tomasek said he asked the Florida Department of Transportation to restrict the driveway to right-in, right-out access, but FDOT declined to close the median.
Project engineer Mark Siner said the hotel will add a 165-foot left-turn stacking lane, enough for about 10 vehicles, and that the property has a secondary access via Porter Lane to Palm Street.
Still, Councilman Jim Bagby argued the design could exacerbate an already dangerous area.
“What we’re allowing to be created here is the worst intersection,” he said.
The hotel’s landscape plan became the most contentious point. The submitted drawings showed only 119 required trees, the minimum needed to meet code.
Siner said a full landscape design would be completed after approval.
“What we have shown you is the minimum number of trees that’s required to meet your code,” he said. “We will supplement that with other landscaping around that.”
He acknowledged the drawings were basic.
“It looks very amateurish — stick figure,” he said.
Bagby objected to approving preliminary illustrations in place of final plans.
“You said your little stick drawing is not— No, you’ll go back and watch the tape,” he told Siner.
Wagner said the issue illustrated a larger problem.
“These plans are exactly what’s wrong with Destin,” the mayor said. “What our code is allowing…this is exactly what’s destroying the community.”
Councilwoman Teresa Hebert countered that applicants should not be faulted for following requirements as written.
City Attorney Kimberly Kopp said the project will pay about $395,200 in impact fees because the application was submitted during a statutory window before the city’s new mobility fees took effect.
Had the application been filed later, the hotel would have owed between $3 million and $3.9 million, according to estimates.
“Congrats, guys, you made it under the wire,” Destin told the applicants.
A traffic study found the hotel will generate 209 evening peak-hour trips. Because the segment of Highway 98 is already failing, the additional traffic does not further downgrade its rating.
The development order will return for second reading on Dec. 16.
Siner told the council his team followed the city’s rules precisely.
“All we’re asking you to do is approve the project that meets your code,” he said. “All we’re asking is somebody to make a motion of that, make a second and then get us started.”
The council approved the project with the added conditions. The debate surrounding it signaled that while Destin’s code permits such projects today, the city may be moving toward stricter development standards in the near future.
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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